I hate choosing favorites, because I'm really bad at it. Here, have a wall of poorly edited reviews which should hopefully be less terrible than my rankings:

Spoiler: Motherlode Canyon Zone

The level begins in-media-res, with sonic being pulled along some big, distinctive train tracks. Stuff like this, where a player is forced into a particular level interaction at the start of a stage, can be great for teaching the player about a particular gimmick or rule about the stage. Unfortunately, this intro implies rather the opposite from what the player should do whenever he comes across floating train tracks  the intro spins you across the planks, but everywhere else rewards you for instead running along its rails instead. Taking the introduction as a cue punishes the player, and thus worsens the level.

Misleading mechanics are a bit of an unfortunate theme in this level, actually. From weird crushers above your sight that end with a pit at the other end you can't see, to crumbling platform drops that don't indicate you have to jump off of to not die, to holes in the catawalks that blend in with the moire of the flat, to jumps that -seem- workable but just barely aren't, to chain swings that inhibit your platforming rather than help it(left path, right at the beginning)...

And then that weird blue-turning-to-red thing at the end of the map. I've played through it twice but never figured out what was going on there  after a while the blue button in the spiral stair room disappears, but I could finish the level either way and couldn't figure out what the button did. The blue-to-red timer things in the other rooms are similarly mysterious.

Meanwhile in the orbiting polyobject room was a low ledge with some diagonal red springs, which I found had an intangible wall leading to an empty room. Couldn't figure out what to do there, just looked around and left.

I could go on about big empty rooms, but the key here is that now that you're experimenting with linedefs and technical abilities, you have to put more focus on communicating the rules and goals of each room and gimmick to the player. Remember, you're not making a trap to kill sonic, but a game to be understood and enjoyed. Being killed by surprise because something was hard to see or figure out is like trying to do something awesome in Monopoly only to be told about some obscure rule that nobody ever brought up before. Regardless of how true the rule is, or how the level designer intended the stage to be played, it sucks to be punished for a misunderstanding that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Spoiler: GREENFLOWER WOW! Incredible! 2 Ghost Battle

...Erhem. So, a boss. Neat! Lackluster explosion aside, the production values were pretty good in this one  kinda surprising, since the centerpiece of it were some sprites taken from a top-down zelda game.

The intro is... weird. The room looks cool, but I don't really know what the point of it is. Could have been an opportunity to hand out some rings that couldn't be held as reserve during the fight itself, but you didn't really use it for that, and nothing about the intro directs the player's towards where the boss appears  the exact opposite, it directs your attention to the outer areas of the arena since it expands from a compact space. So as an intro, it's not really doing much of anything for the experience...

And then it replays unskippably every time you die. Please don't do that.

But, on to the actual meat of the fight  the boss was organized into three rounds(how traditional!) of 2 phases, each representation of which was mostly identical save for some changes in HP, and maybe attack duration though the randomized elements make that hard to determine. The extended length doesn't seem to do much though, since the plentiful rings on the phase 1 arena mean that long-term attrition can't happen. If the player is going to be bled dry by a thousand cuts, it'll have to happen fully within one of the instances of phase 2... but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Phase 1 takes place on the castle rooftop arena, which is essentially just flat, with two dimples (hi gargoyles!) and a few slants out the outer edges, since the invisible walls cut you off before you can reach the edge of the roof. As mentioned before, there are multiple sources of rings up here that can be held in reserve, so there's not much the boss can do to kill at this point... but, let's take a look at how he tries:

Idle  Walks directly towards you. Slowly. Gives no indication of timing or type of forthcoming attacks. If you don't care about your guard bonus, just wail away at him  you can always grab rings from the arena if you need to, in the event that an attack starts up unexpectedly.

Attack 1  He fires large-ish, speedy projectiles from his amulet.
Solution (survival)  Run away. While traditionally you'd have to stay perpendicular to the firing angle as you move, these projectiles have a limited range and will dissapear, so just getting far away will keep you safe.
Solution (counterattack)  Circle strafe at medium range and knock him silly when he stops firing  the delay between shots is too short to hit him in between them.
Failure modes (penalty is normal damage):

Attacking during the attack, or just being unlucky with when he decides to start the attack  notably, he can launch it immediately after the last one finishes.

Attack 2  pumpkin ghost fires concentric circles of short-range fire for a brief moment before jumping at you, and firing some more while shaking the screen.
Solution (survival)  Don't stand still. Just moving a little bit after he jumps will be sufficient to not get hurt.
Solution (counterattack)  Wait for the landing, then jump over the flames, or spindash underneath them. Latter is more consistent, and if possible should be used for all attacks during phase 1 in case this boss attack is used suddenly.
Failure modes:

Jump attacking as knuckles

Making contact in the middle, rather than the peak of a jump

Not getting hurt in this phase, in otherwords, can just boil down to running away and not interacting with the boss. The arena is large enough, and the attacks themselves have no momentum or pressure to stop a stalemate like that. Method of attacking the boss is ordinary, and nothing to really talk about.

After a few hits though, the body of the ghost dissapears, and you get sucked in (but not the gargoyles, awww.), starting phase 2 for that round. Phase 2 takes place inside the head, in a circle divided up into four slices that crush shut and then slowly open back up on a timer, and a central point where the ghost resides, either protected by a pillar while you have to deal with the crushers, or opened up with the ghost shooting lines of directly aimed ATZ-ish fire.

Survival solution for the crushers is just to move when you notice them closing where you are. The counterattack solution though, which easily makes up the coolest interaction in the fight, is to try to hop inside of the crusher right AFTER it finishes so you can attack quicker when the central pillar opens up, as the ghost is elevated a bit from the bottom of the arena and so can be difficult to strike before he begins shooting.

The shooting itself can be avoided with grazing circle strafe, where you wait for the projectiles(which are slow, in this instance) of each stream to finish firing before moving out of their way, to conserve space. Done correctly, and you can stay very close to the ghost for either when he stops firing, or when you decide to take a shot at hitting him in between streams.

Depending on whether or not the ghost gets extended flashing time or shuts the pillar (I'm not sure what triggers either of these things to happen or not happen when you hit the ghost) though, you can deal most of the needed damage the instant you land inside the arena by just rushing in and attacking before he does anything. Phase 2 ends in 4 hits, so you might not be there long if you get lucky.

Unfortunately, during any firing phase, you can just speed things up by getting hit intentionally and counterattacking during your flashing frames. The worst thing that could happen is that the side where your rings fall gets crushed so maybe you lose some of them.

After those 4 hits, you're spat back out for the next round.

So, what's good and bad here? The intro falls flat, and the 3-round system doesn't accomplish anything except adding a bit of tedium since the fight, and in particular the attack solutions, broader strategy and failure modes do not change between each round. Once you've learned the two phase, that's all there is to see of it.

The arena design for phase 1 doesn't compliment the attacks, which are basic and rely on being close to the player to be effective, and don't affect the fight outside of their duration. Phase 1 winds up being pretty much forgettable, with the screen-shaking in particular coming across as look at how powerful this is supposed to be when there really isn't anything to see, except perhaps the gap underneath the circles of fire.

Phase 2's arena, on the other hand, is the centerpiece of the fight. From a thematic angle, the silly fun of fighting -inside- of the boss is novel to SRB2, its only previous showing that I can recall being the final boss of The Emerald Isles, though I rather suspect your inspiration was Mario and Luigi, rather than than Kuja's stone golem replica. The disorienting nature of every surface pulsating and squeezing shut and open is exciting, but not so confusing as to be unfair.

From a gameplay perspective, the coolest bit here is how the ghost is slightly elevated and has to be hit at the peak of your jump as sonic, but is most -optimally- hit by standing on a just-crushed slice of the stage as the central pillar opens so that you can short-hop into him. Guessing when this will happen, and monkeying around on the moving floors to get into the right place at the right time despite how you can't jump directly to a just-opening segment from a fully depressed floor was engaging and fun, but not a required action for the boss, so many players may never have tried that out.

The single explicit attack of this phase is effective, if slightly annoying  you're often in an enclosed space, so you have to stay aware of what the floors around you are doing to know which direction to dodge in before, or unless you figure out the grazing circle strafe maneuver. The elevated position of the boss lets you move straight backwards if things get to hot, at the expense of possibly losing a shot at attacking the boss. Since there are no rings in this phase, you can feasibly die to regular damage, or to the crushers, especially if you get tunnel vision with the ghost, or hit while your segment is closing up.

Unfortunately though, the attack isn't really diverse. Every attack in this fight except for the crushers, and the final phase version of the green fire(which lasts long enough that you could run out of room if you decided you weren't going to move side to side ever) can be survived in the short term by moving away from the boss, and every attack can be survived without giving up counterattack positioning with circle-strafe, with only minor variations and the bright spot of jockying for height among the crushers while waiting for phase 2 to become vulnerable. It's the same puzzle given a different coat of paint, again and again.

A bad intro, good presentation, some but ultimately insufficient attack diversity, a bad arena and a good arena. It's not an awful boss, just not an especially good one. My advice is twofold:

Look at the coolest part of a boss idea, the most fun thing that you've put together about it (like say, the shifting arena in phase 2 and how you can try to use that to your advantage in a natural, platforming-centric way), and double down on that. When you've got something fun and other stuff just isn't measuring up that much, make that part the focus!

Secondly, picture each boss's attack as a puzzle, with different solutions depending on if you're just learning it and don't want to get hit, if you want to counterattack, and depending on context. You're cramming in multiple puzzles in the same place, so you want them to have different solutions, and possibly different penalties for failing them  furthermore, you want there to be some variation on the solutions and ways to fail the same attacks depending on the context, such as if the player is close or far, or if some part of the arena is in the way, etc. This will make the fight feel more dynamic and less repetitive, and challenge the player to recognize and execute the correct reactions to a given situation.

Spoiler: Flicker Lights Zone

I'm not sure I played this correctly, since I could generally tell ground apart from not-ground in a lot of the level, with the exception of some of the later parts... though even there, I managed to get a crawla/monitor bounce chain going to skip a room, which was fun. Setting that aside though, this wasn't very fun, to be honest  perhaps if there was more flow to it, like a stream of lights that you'd keep pace with ala the spiral dissapearing stairs in ERZ1 (though not necessarily that fast), or other effects... as it was, the level's chief gimmick was applied solely as a guillotine hazard to which you don't necessarily know the consequence of failing.

Had a leap of faith near the end, which was rather dubious given that the room right before it was a big 'ol deathpit, and having the lights switch off as you land was scary for platforming, but not really in a good way, since the solution was just to wait 2 cycles instead of jumping at the end of the first one. When it comes down to it, the level was just completely tanked by bad flow, which all came down to its central gimmick.

Sorry man, but in SRB2, I like to keep moving!

Spoiler: Emerald Flower Zone

This isn't just using GFZ as its theme... several bits of it, both in terms of room shape and smaller set pieces seem directly lifted out of it, and I don't know what to make of that. Contrary to what some others have been saying, there are multiple paths, and there are secrets, they just feel bolted on sometimes. That said, I like how vertical it is sometimes, since jumping off of high places to smash into some badniks or land somewhere I want to be quickly is fun... but when I'm just taking spring after spring to wind up at a dead end with an emblem (well, red ring in this case), I like it rather less.

Besides that, nothing really terrible in this map, but it doesn't have much interesting stuff in it either, aside from the pretty geometry and lighting here and there. Platforming, crawla bouncing, and a touch of exploration are enough for me to have fun though, at any rate.

Spoiler: Eggmanway 7

I'd talk about how much I hate you for putting long-cycle oscillating platforms in a race, except

A: You know exactly what you did and will never be sorry for it
B: I can't stop smiling at how stupid and on-point you were with the parody and in-jokes that people have to have been here for 8 years to have a chance of getting.

__________________
Science tells us that nothing can be proven, only rendered more likely to be true. If we do not question what we already know, how can we know, much less admit, when we're wrong? Such things are vital to progress.

Considering it's been 4 whole months, I can see why last the OLDC was postponed. It's a surprise to see just 5 maps here.

Spoiler: Single Player opinions

Ghost Battle:
Nice ideas, great fun! ...when it works, of course. The sound glitches out alot at the start and ending, player 2 spawns at the inner boss, and the inner boss' invincibility time goes on for waaay too long making it a waiting game. None of that stops it from being one of my favorite bosses in SRB2.
EggmanWay7
Not that funny, but the race itself is good, albeit short. Thank god for the slowed down Detons.

Motherlode Canyon
This map is a complete mess, and I haven't seen this much empty space in forever. Nonetheless, it had some fun concepts sprinkled here and there and I liked the use of poly-objects. So what it DID have was fun.

Flicker Lights
Clean level, neat gimmick....but it does absolutely nothing with it except for a bit of "blind" platforming at the end, so it gets rather boring and makes me wonder why it's even here. Considering this has been done multiple times already, it's a bit disappointing.

Emerald Flower
What can I say? This is pretty much an oversized and scrambled GFZ2. I also ended up running in circles because I thought I found a secret which was really the way back to the start. It's not horrible, but this has almost nothing going for it in concept.

Match

Grift Relic > Rocky Field > Seabound Ruin > Archive Stronghold

It seems to be a trend lately to make huge levels crowded with secrets, hidden pathways, tons of scenery+obstacles, and lots of scale-able structures. Except Match is about doing battle and interacting with other players, NOT the level itself. Match levels should be smoothly navigated, simple to memorize, and easy to find other players in.

So if you prefer doing any of the above things, consider making Single Player stages instead.

Spoiler: Match opinions

Grift Relic:
First the less obvious; I like what you did with the shadows. The thing that stood out to everyone right away, though: this place is SPACIOUS. Probably almost too much so. The good thing is that it's easy to find players when there's so little obstructing your view. The bad part is that the field becomes the only valid place to fight, because the great climb to the top takes FAR too long. Also, on a map this big, you'll NEED some more rings. I feel this one has potential if revamped a bit.

Rocky FieldLots of grey, lots of vision-killing rocks, lots of projectile-stopping ledges, and lots of cramped platforming making head-to-head battles/trying to keep momentum really awkward. What it DOES have going for it is it's relatively small size, iconic looking center formation, and plenty of rings and monitors.

Seabound RuinI like the level's theme, as well as the way the scenery and rings are laid about. The level DOES suffer most of the same issues as Nimbus Ruins, though, and because of that is very unforgiving towards anyone with lag. It's also way too big for it's own good and a nightmare to navigate if one wishes to actually fight people. WHY the springs through tiny square holes, man? Just WHY.

Archive StrongholdThis place is absolutely gorgeous! Probably one of the prettiest maps I have seen for SRB2 yet. Sadly, that's also the best I can say about it. I wonder if this was intended as Match map at all, because I can barely run backwards through a hallway for 2 seconds without getting stuck on a tiny little ledge. Everything in this map gets in your way.

You're best off waiting in the middle if you're hoping to encounter ANYONE, it's a nightmare to dodge things or chase people without getting stuck on something, visual indication on what leads to a corner and a dead end comes far too late, and it's way too easy to jump out of a window to your death during fights. Also, you KNOW something's wrong when 4 minutes later I'm STILL finding whole new sections....in a match map.

That sounds really negative, but don't get me wrong. This map is awesome. It just doesn't work as a battle map.

Capture the Flag

Magma Plant > Dual Heavens Zone

Spoiler: CTF opinions

Magma Plant:
The map is just the right size, looks great, is easy to find players in, and smooth enough to navigate. Yet some halls are a bit too cramped, and there may just be a bit TOO much focus on the lava. But really, those are just nitpicks.

Dual Heavens
It sure looks nice enough, but it's really slow to navigate unless you do some monitor bouncing because of the huge amount of ledges. There's also an overabundance of team-only rings, while the base itself is tiny and inconspicuous. The level gets some good use out of the spindash, though.

Ghost Battle: The boss is really cool but, when I got inside of him, I got stucked in one corner.

EMW7: Truly, the real SEQUEL of EMW5. In other words, UGLY FOR THIS TRILOGY.

Mother Lode Canyon: I felt in a bottomless pit million times. Another HUGE-UGLY map. I like the start of the level.

Emerald Flower Zone: Hi GFZ! The level looks very very bad. I don't like the gimmick for this map and like I said. VERY VERY BAD.

MultiPlayer???

Match:
Archive Stronghold > Rocky Field > Seabound Ruin > Grift Relic

Archive Stronghold: Holy Mother Of GOD! This is the most gorgeous map I've seen in ages! You payed much attention at details. Nice map! Keep It!

Rocky Field: Really cool map Icefox! I like the gray here but, green and blue looks a bit odd for me. I like the gimmick for this map, but the map is short and tons of rings. Really cool :3

Seabound Ruins: I felt in a bottomless pit again. HUGE MAP and, this map is good for tails and knuckles. Belive me. Sonic isn't good for this map and I don't know why you added water floor on map when you have a skybox with water. Really odd for me.

Grift Relic: No Comment. And why is that Super Mario crusher in this map? Really UGLY map.

Ctf:
Magma Plant > Dual Heavens

Magma Plant: Simplistic. I like the gimmick.

Dual Heavens: No comment. I can't navigate so easy and where are the automatics? Who added rings here??

I liked this one, the map itself is well built and all, in a way that Tails and Knuckles players can actually get some advantages over Sonics which are gonna need the springs in order to reach the top of the map and start to Rail Snipe and all.
Also your Skybox is kinda broken, you should've put the Skybox viewpoint higher in the sector to give the Skybox's water size approximatively the level's. Great job overall, sir!

Archive Stronhold

Holy masterballz, if that level is not amazing. There were details everywhere, magnifiscent. But, this is also sadly a problem. As Super Mystic Sonic said, the details sometimes make the map hard to navigate through, it's also full of corners where you will get ambushed, it feels kinda like the level misses an open section where the Grenades are not gonna be lethal weapons. Also I gotta say I had FPS drop issues a bit everywhere in the map.

Overall, I think you should get your hands on making Single Player levels again, your detail style will fit way more this kind of thing, and you have already proven us you can do it with the first 2.1 OLDC :P

Rocky Field

Nope, Icefox, being on my Skype contact list won't help you getting higher ranking. >:3
The good thing is that I am not alergic to grey. The map is overall decent, but the fact that everything in it -aside of the water- is grey sometimes make it hard to see the ledges, which made me fall in the pit in that little tunnel. Also I'm not a fan of the music you chosen.

Gift Relic

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate this map in the first place. In fact, it felt like you tried to replicate some "Meadow Match" style. For fuck's sake, don't, this makes the map pre-dominated by Sonic in any way, and punishes other players in general. (I still don't know why people like Meadow Match in the first place)
I liked what you tried to do with the shadows, but it was kind of unecessary sadly, especially because most parts of the map itself are lacking details. I also didn't get that warp pipe behind the fence.
You could greatly improve your map by adding some more relief to it, rather than letting some flat thokfest meadow, trust me.

Spoiler: Quick CTF reviews

Magma Plant

The level is simple, and actually easy to navigate through in overall, but again, it misses some more open section where you can have fun with other weapons than explosives.

Dual Heaven

Oh my god not that awful music. Please no.
The level itself is hard to navigate through, and very small. And Knuckles has real problems capping the flag.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bronydude2k5

If you make me a Sash Lilac wad, I'll make you a sonic sprite hack of any choice.

Level: Ghost Battle
Author: Chi.Miru
Comment: Huh... a boss fight and a rather interesting one at that. Cycles between being outside and then inside the boss itself where you attack the core. Just don't get crushed.

====================

Level: Flicker Lights Zone
Author: Kevin
Comment: Those that play this map in OpenGL will find that the lighting will ruin this gimmick. Even in the dark if you look closely or turn up the brightness you can see markings which will alert you to a death pit besides some platforming sections later on. Oh and by the way... thanks for the scare with the evil red eyes.

====================

Level: EGGMANWAY7:Quest for Eggmanways 1 through 4 - REVENGE OF FINAL DEMO
Author: Zipper and toaster
Comment: A somewhat short race with Metal Sonic with Detons beeping left & right and rising platforms.

====================

Level: Mother Lode Canyon Zone
Author: Chaobrother
Comment: Riding the railroad tracks at the start and then... big & empty areas. Sections over massive death pits. No enemies until you get about near the end. Don't know what else to say other that having 1ups near checkpoints seems a bit... off. That's probability just me though.

====================

Level: Emerald Flower Zone
Author: Glaber
Comment: Kinda feels like a bigger GFZ. Actually... it does feel like a bigger GFZ in some areas.

__________________
GraphicX8000 will return... when I'm actually not lazy with finishing it.

Single Player Maps:1. Ghost Battle
Very visually appealing. The boss gets quite redundant after a while, though. I'd either lower the number of hits needed to defeat it, or add more attacks to the boss.

2. Flicker Lights
I don't have much to say about this one. Pretty basic gimmick, and the level is pretty visually appealing.

3. Eggmanway7
This isn't anything special either. This is basically just the Metal Sonic race on a shorter level with a different theme and less appealing level design. It's kind of frustrating at first, but once you play it a few times it's really easy.

4. Emerald Flower
Seems like a generic Green Flower Zone to me. It's not terrible, but it's not necessarily good either. It's just tasteless and nothing special. The main issue with it design wise is how unnecessarily huge the level is, and how empty it is. If you're going to have a huge map, there needs to be things to explore and things to collect.

5. Mother Load Canyon
I'm sorry, but this map is not good at all. It's sooooo damn huge, but there's little to nothing in the map. This map doesn't have a very good sense of direction either, and the fact that it's so unnecessarily large makes it even worse. Some of the textures here don't clash well, especially the blue one. By the way, if you're going to have unclimbable walls, you need to be consistent about it and make sure the unclimbable walls all share one or a set of textures to signify that they're not climbable. You can't just have a type of wall climbable on one half of the map, and unclimbable on the other half.

Match Maps:1. Archive Stronghold
Very nice looking and fun to play.

2. Rocky Field Zone
I didn't find anything particularly wrong with this one.

3. Seabound Ruin
The main issue with this map is how annoying rail sniping can get. Especially if you're not up high, you're probably gonna keep getting launched into pits and barely be able to gain any points by the end of the match.

4. Grift Relic
This map is quite big. I'd probably shrink it down a bit. Also, like "Lat" said, it seems like Sonic would have a dominant advantage over Tails and Knuckles.

2. Dual Heavens
It's difficult for a Knuckles user to capture the flag without revving up a spindash and short cutting across the map, which would probably cause the player to get hit while revving up the spin. So you should really lower the height on some of the platforms or add alternative ways to get across or something. Map looks nice, though.

Emerald Flower Zone
Taking inspiration from existing maps is fine, but this map is so similar to Greenflower Zone Act 2 in places I consider it to be plagiarism. Especially the second to last room, the basic structure is exactly the same. The hidden emerald token in that room is a rather glaring example of this.

I suggest taking a look at existing maps and asking yourself "What can I learn from this" instead of "How can I improve it". It'll help you come up with new ideas instead of repeating existing ones.

Regarding the original areas though, you need to remember to fill in your empty spaces. Running room is fine, the classic Sonic games did it a lot (Chemical Plant zone being the best example) but even then, there were objects to interact with and opportunities to change path by jumping onto separate walkways. You had the right idea with the row of spikes in the water current though, because that forced the player to take action or reach a standstill. And I liked how failing the platforming challenge in the water current room introduced the player to an alternative path.

I did like the final room though, not enough people make vertical platforming challenges in SRB2. And the player was kept on their toes as they climbed up.

Hopefully this feedback helps! If there's anything you wanted me to cover that I left out, do say.

Honestly, EMW7 is not representative of anything except the failings of our forefathers given mortal form once more. It was quick and for fun and we knew exactly how much effort we needed to put in to get it to the state we wanted it to be in. However, it would be nice to have a review to signpost its successes and mistakes to map developers who are uncertain exactly what is off about the map, and so I would like to request a whackjooview if it's not too much of a hassle.

Honestly, EMW7 is not representative of anything except the failings of our forefathers given mortal form once more. It was quick and for fun and we knew exactly how much effort we needed to put in to get it to the state we wanted it to be in. However, it would be nice to have a review to signpost its successes and mistakes to map developers who are uncertain exactly what is off about the map, and so I would like to request a whackjooview if it's not too much of a hassle.

11/10 would ask for it to be included in next srb2sbahj release.

In all seriousness though, I'll cover everything wrong with the map in simple bullet points. I don't need to properly articulate it for constructive criticism, as you already know what's wrong! You made it deliberately bad!

Slow moving platforms - they only serve to further a lead (either yours or Metal Sonics) in a race. Even in the singleplayer campaign, if they are used they are used in pairs so the player doesn't have to wait too long. (Or in the case of the ERZ3 race, the distance they cover is small enough you don't need to wait)

The real deton at the end, is completely out of nowhere given that the player is taught to treat detons as stationary obstacles. Always keep your new enemy types distinct at a glance! Even if it's just a recolour like those white crawlas

Level length, this stage is really quite short. Using the ERZ3 race as a benchmark, the player has 1:34 to complete the level while EMW7 just has enough content to give the player 0:59. EMW7 does have multiple paths, but the nature of a timer discourages the player from exploring.